


your love song was a new language to me

by mollivanders



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Adventure, Adventure & Romance, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, Fluff, Huddling For Warmth, Mutual Pining, Sharing a Bed, Undercover Missions, pre-established, some character study but also kissing lbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 03:32:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13227228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollivanders/pseuds/mollivanders
Summary: Trying to get more comfortable, she looped an arm around his waist – and almost on instinct, she feels something tick into place. Here.Home.She’s not alone.If she hadn’t been paying very close attention, she might have missed the way his eyelids fluttered down, or the clench of his jaw giving away a bite of his inner lip. If she hadn’t been this close to him, she might have missed exactly how tightly he was holding himself in place, or the surprised catch of his breath.She doesn’t miss it.





	your love song was a new language to me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [incognitajones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/incognitajones/gifts).



> Written for the RebelCaptain Secret Santa exchange with the prompts of "mutual pining; bedsharing; one or both of them undercover; meeting before the events of canon; huddling for warmth"! incognitajones also requested one of my holiday gift fics with the prompt of "If your heart was in it I'd stay a minute". I shamelessly rolled them into a single large fic because the prompts took me there :) I hope you enjoy it dear!

“Ha!” Cassian exclaims from across the cabin and Jyn turned from the fire expectantly. He’d successfully pried open the locked trunk in the corner. “Blankets,” he says, and pulls a fluffy red piece out of the trunk.

She shivers in response, nodding, and turned back to the fire pit. There hadn’t been much dry wood stocked up – hell, there wasn’t much of anything stocked up – but it was probably enough to let them sleep without freezing first. Standing on creaky knees, she pointed her blaster at the pile of kindling and took a shot at it.

“And I thought Hoth was cold,” she says as the fire sprang to life, sharing a commiserating look with Cassian. At least the happy crackle of the fire lent some cheer to the gloomy cabin as Cassian tossed another piece of wood into the fire pit.

“Remind me never to take you to Fest,” he says, shaking more blankets out onto the narrow bed. It was pushed against the wall, under a nasty draft from outside. Without talking, they drag it closer to the fire pit in the middle of the floor, and he adds, “Unless you’d prefer to freeze more than you are now.”

She shrugs, stealing a look as he walks back to the trunk. He wasn’t one to talk about his home planet but she knew the name, and knew it to be his by the way the name rolls off his tongue. 

(That, and it had been listed in the profile she’d hacked before the mission to Jedha.)

“Home?” she asks, confirming her intel by the stiffening of his shoulders.

“It was,” he says quickly before changing subjects, pointing to the bed. “There’s only one bed.”

“I noticed,” she says, tamping down the flutter of her stomach. “Were you offering to take the floor?” 

“Of course not,” he says, eyes steady and seemingly unfazed. “We’d freeze to death.” His mouth quirks suddenly with something besides amusement. “Or at least, you might.”

She nods, accepting the logic without protest over the rising hammer of her heartbeat. She _is_ still shivering. The clothes they’d escaped in weren’t the warmest, and she thought longingly of the snow gear they’d left behind in the town. No use now.

“I’ll take this side,” she says, opting for efficiency to keep her mind off the cold. Quickly, she pulls off her boots as Cassian crouched by the fire, warming his hands. Even from the bed she could see that his ears were pricked like a Lamian hound’s as she tugged off each layer of damp clothing. If he’s not actually indifferent to the single bed, she thinks, at least she’s not alone. Personally, she feels like she’s corded on a live wire. 

A moment later, the firelight shifts across his face, catching the haggard lines there, and her heart twists in more than sympathy, pausing her undress. She isn’t ready to name it, or face it, but – there’s something more there. Something that’s made her stay far longer than she’d expected; far longer than she thought she’d be welcome.

Something that meant _home_. 

The light shifts again, moving him into shadow once more. With a sigh, she shucked off her pants and dove under the pile of blankets, wriggling her toes in relief. On the one hand, it would be smarter to remove _all_ her wet clothes to share body heat.

(On the other hand – no.)

It had been a long day. The faster she fell asleep, the faster she could stop thinking about it.

+

_Two days before_

The town their contact was hiding in was nestled in the foothills of the largest mountain around, a tall snow-capped peak. The mountain offered a small spaceport to crews unable to pay the fees at the town’s spaceport, but aside from hunting cabins it was mostly abandoned. Their contact – Jenkins – was embedded in the local Imperial cargo fleet and had been one of the first links in the chain that had led to _Erso, Galen_. As such, Jyn was particularly interested in meeting her.

She’s still partly surprised the Alliance lets her go out on missions at all, let alone with Cassian. She’d flouted the instructions of the Council, helped steal a ship with another Alliance officer, and led a raid on an Imperial base that had led to deadly losses. Prime rebel material, but not so much that of a reliable rebel _officer_.

She _had_ been right about the Death Star plans though, so – fair was fair.

Still, Draven still shot her dirty looks in the hallways whenever their paths crossed, and she can’t say she doesn’t return them. Skirting the Alliance high command and the ghosts of her youth, Jyn had jumped at the chance to go out on a mission but now, trekking down a mountainside, she finds herself grumpy at her own judgment.

“It’s not far now,” Cassian says as if reading her thoughts and she nods, sparing words. “Jenkins has a room for us on the outskirts of town before the meet tomorrow.”

Jyn nods again, tugging her coat tighter. “What does she look like?” she asks, seeking a distraction from the cold. They’d landed as low as they could on the mountain, but still high enough to be above the range of Imperial sensors. By now she was sure they’d been hiking for hours. Cassian’s eyes were trained on the trail ahead and he held a hand back to pause their descent, navigating around some obstacle. 

“She’s tall,” he says, and she steps faster to catch his words. “Older than Senator Mothma. White hair, purple eyes. She’s Nikshian.”

Jyn raised her eyebrows in surprise. “She sounds like she stands out. For a spy.” Cassian stopped suddenly and she stumbled into him, catching her balance. His face was cloudier than usual as he answered.

“She might,” he says, “if her whole planet wasn’t full of Imperial loyalists.”

_Oh_.

She didn’t need Cassian to explain any further, and knew he wouldn’t. Planets wholly loyal to the Empire were rare enough, but if Jenkins was stationed this far on the Outer Rim it was unlikely she came from a planet where her family could have purchased a prime commission. Her comparative resistance made her stand out more than anything else.

By the time they traipse into town and find their lodgings, Jyn thinks she could kiss Jenkins. The room she’d booked for them was downright cozy with power from the town’s underground mines heating the room and meal packs less than a week old stocked in the kitchenette. It was definitely more comfort than they’d had on their shuttle.

“Remind me to thank her,” she says, dropping on one of the beds and tugging her boots off, “profusely”. Looking up at Cassian, she catches a strange expression fleeting across his face as he watches her – a look he tucks away as quickly as she sees it, but a look that still twists something inside her.

(Something…something like home.)

“We’ll see what she has to say first,” Cassian says, grabbing two meal packs and turning on the stove. “Her message was cryptic.”

“Aren’t you all?” Jyn asked, crossing the room in her sock feet to stand by him. The floor feels _glorious_ but old instincts keep her focused and on mission. “Isn’t that her job?” she asks, clarifying. Cassian shot her another look – a wry one this time – as he stirred the pot.

“Yes,” he admits and lets her steal a spoonful to taste before taking over.

“Maybe you don’t like it when they’re cryptic with _you_ ,” she suggests, swallowing the broth. His eyes flicker across her again, that same look crossing his face.

“Yes,” he echoes, and for all his skill he couldn't hide the softening of his eyes. He leaned against the nearest wall, watching her work while he fiddled absently with a comm. She could tell he was trying to find the coded frequency he wanted even as he listened to her, and she thinks again of how much he is a spy; how much he _is_ and _is defined by_ the Rebellion. Saw’s cadre was less of a formal military than the Alliance, but she knows the motions all the same.

(Knows the motions, and lives them.)

“We can scout the location for the meet tonight,” she says, trying to refocus the tone of the room as she pours their dinner into two bowls. “Then we can go early in the morning then, when the watch changes.”

Cassian shoots her another look, different this time. It’s one she knows, but hadn’t seen in a long time, before him. Before Scarif. Before Yavin IV. It was the look of one soldier to another, satisfaction and trust and confidence all rolled into one.

Despite herself, she holds it – and tucks it away for safekeeping.

It’s something, she thinks, for another day.

+

Like every member of Saw’s cadre, Jyn had learns to grab sleep whenever and wherever she could. Close quarters were nothing unusual, and even less so when she’d ends up on her own. She wasn’t particular about space, or people; it was habit to disappear into herself even in a crowded room.

Cassian sleeping beside her somehow defied all her training on the subject.

For a wild moment, when she’d felt him approach the bed she’d had the half-crazed thought he would sleep top and tailing against her. Wrapping her arm under the single pillow she shut her eyes, tucked her feet up under her, and tried to drown out her thoughts; tried to drown out the cold; and tried to find the space where sleep stayed.

_Get it together, Erso_.

But she’d clearly tipped him off because Cassian turned from where he was pulling off his boots, hand braced on the bed, to look over at her. 

“Are you alright, Jyn?” he asked and she let out a shaky breath, almost a laugh. Almost. She wasn’t a young girl anymore; wasn’t one for flowers and sweet boys courting at her door. Still, somehow, her name in his mouth made her feel as if she hadn’t been raised in a war; hadn’t lost everyone she’d known or loved. As if something _more_ was possible.

It was too much, and it was _right there_. An offering. Every time.

“Just freezing,” she says, and the cold sells it for her. “Are you almost done?”

He let out an aggrieved huff but finished undressing without another word, following her cues. When he crawled in beside her, he tucked the blankets around the sides of their bodies like a cocoon and she tried not to be too grateful.

“Better?” he asks, arms tucked safely against her back from where he’s lying. Helplessly, she lets out an amused groan and turns over to face him. 

“I’m freezing,” she admits, pulling the edges of the blankets higher over them. “And you feel like a furnace.”

His eyes are steadying, dark pools of light beside her, and she suddenly wishes they could have the heat of the fire without the light. Her feet tangle with his as they shift, trying to get comfortable, and he gasps in shock, an open mouthed sound that was deeply unfair. 

“Your feet are _freezing_ ,” he groans and something in him snaps, gives up, or overrides whatever protocol he’d been trying to observe. He quickly wraps his arms around her, hands running in warm circles along her back, and slowly she thaws against him. A minute later, she tentatively runs her cold feet against his again, testing, and he shakes his head in disbelief.

“Sorry,” she says, decidedly otherwise, and tucks her arms against his chest. She can feel his heart beating under her hands, and her fingers brush against the spot.

“It’s fine,” he says, his body relaxing against hers as their temperatures even out. His hands slow their urgent path on her skin, shifting into a more familiar rhythm. “I don’t mind.” He pauses, looking down at her. “Are you always this cold?”

She snorts, almost proud of herself. “I rewired the heating in my quarters on Hoth,” she offers. “So not _always_.”

If Cassian was prone to rolling his eyes, he would have then. Instead, the expression on his face was torn between duty and incredulity. _Typical._  
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” he says, and his hands drift to a more comfortable angle near her hips. The cold was almost entirely gone from the bed but with the present warmth, her exhaustion was nowhere to be found. She watched him carefully, studying his features as he continued. “You always do find a way around the rules.”

She hummed noncommittally. It hardly seemed like a dealbreaker. Trying to get more comfortable, she looped an arm around his waist – and almost on instinct, she feels something tick into place. Here. _Home_.

She’s not alone.

If she hadn’t been paying very close attention, she might have missed the way his eyelids fluttered down, or the clench of his jaw giving away a bite of his inner lip. If she hadn’t been this close to him, she might have missed exactly how tightly he was holding himself in place, or the surprised catch of his breath.

She doesn’t miss it.

The invitation hits her like a ton of bricks. She wants to speak, wants to find the words that never quite seem to come. He has a thousand words to her one, and now, of all times, he’s frozen silent. Instead of words, she reaches out with a light touch. She’s expert at the other kind; leaving damage wherever she goes, but this is still a language she knows. Hesitantly, she brushes her thumb against the small of his back, gauging his reaction. 

His eyes fly open in an instant, locking on hers, and her mind flashes back to a lost moment on a lift, a stolen moment from a lifetime ago. 

Her eyes fall back to his lips.

When he draws a shaky breath, dipping a fraction closer to her, she rises up to meet him, closing the distance between them in a single shot. A heartbeat later, her lips meet his, his arms tightening around her, and the only word she hears in the space between them is her name.

+

_1 day before_

Posing as offworld trade partners, Cassian and Jyn make their way to the meet point with Jenkins, footsteps slowing as they take in the increased security and number of patrols. This was more than they had expected from their intel, and security was tighter than they had seen the night before.

As if on cue, Cassian’s ops comm starts beeping out a series of anxious bloops, a timed sequence that repeats over and over. From back at the shuttle, K2 translates into their earpieces.

“Get out, Cassian. Get out _now_.”

There wasn’t time to figure out whether their cover in particular had been blown or something worse was happening. Before K2 even finished talking, the public announcement system blared to rude life.

“Attention, citizens of Kothka!” the system screamed, and Jyn shot an annoyed look at the loudspeaker, “security protocols have been raised to Level 2. File into designated queues and prepare ident cards for inspection.”

_Shit._ She and Cassian swapped worried looks. Their documents were good enough for a regular inspection, but if the Imps were running full background checks on every civilian there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of them not getting caught. If Cassian had been using his Willix cover, they might have gotten out away with it, but Draven had been worried about Willix being flagged after Scarif. Their covers were paper thin, meant for just this mission.

“Come on,” Cassian whispers from the corner of his mouth, pressing back against the alley wall. “We’ve got to get out of here.” Her hand is already resting on her blaster.

“Preparing for team extract,” K2 says in reply. Cassian shakes his head, even though K2 can’t see them. “Negative,” he says. “Maintain operative cover. It might not be us. Don’t expose Jenkins unless necessary.”

A moment later they realize it doesn’t matter at all. A shackled Jenkins herself is being pushed down the street, distinctive white hair blowing in the wind as a stormtrooper prods her into a speeder. Jyn makes a sudden movement and Cassian grabs at her arm to hold her back, shaking his head. _That won’t help_. Too many troopers and only K2 for backup. Still, they’d had worse odds. Jyn narrowed her eyes.

“K2,” she asks over the comms, “could you grab a prisoner mid-transit?”

There’s a brief pause, K2’s offense clearly noted. “Of course I can,” the droid says a beat later. “Do you want me to?”

She sighs, looking at Cassian and pointing at the route Jenkins took. He looks hesitant as she gestures the outline of her plan but then shrugs, nodding. It could work.

It was still possible that Jenkins had been taken for a smaller infraction. It was _possible_ , however unlikely. It was also just as likely that if she hadn’t been busted for espionage, they would find something of her true loyalties soon enough with some digging if someone thought to look. 

After this, someone was going to think to look.

“Rooftops,” she says, pointing, and Cassian nodded, following her up and watching their backs. Civilians were filing into queues; stormtroopers were looking down at ident cards. Nobody was watching the skies – yet.

Their boots beat against the rooftops, blasters out of holsters, as they improvise. 

(Typical.)

An hour later, K2 has extracted Jenkins from the street, jumping away for a quick evac, and Jyn and Cassian were trekking up the mountainside into the beginnings of a storm, seeking alternate transportation.

And shelter.

+

At some point, she’d fallen asleep. She woke to bright sunlight, Cassian’s forehead resting against hers, his arm still wrapped around her. He’d probably have a dead arm when he woke and carefully, she shifted her weight off it. Still asleep, he mumbled in protest. She’d ended up with a leg slung over his hips and he ran his hand along it, pulling her closer.

Okay, maybe he _wasn’t_ still asleep.

“Cassian,” she says, eliciting another grumble. “Cassian,” she tries again, “it’s morning.”

He cracks an eye open and she can’t help the smile that breaks across her face at the sight. Despite the implication of her comment, she moves closer.

(She doesn’t have to go far.)

“So?” he asks and she beams. She can’t remember the last time she’d been this happy and not facing death. So what if they were on a mountain without a ship; they’d survived worse.“K2 can’t be back yet. We’re stuck.”

She hums, words failing her once more. He opens his eyes fully then, and though they’re as serious as ever she can read him better than most by now. It felt too simple, like a reflection of herself in so many ways, but yet – yet here they were.

“Stuck?” she repeats and he smiles that smile from the night before, the one that had shaped the night. The one she had glimpsed before, had never been sure was hers to hold. It was. He rolled them over to lean over her. Tentatively, she reached up a hand and pushed his hair back from his face. He stilled under her touch, but to drop closer.

“Stuck is fine,” she manages to say, breaking the spell so he kisses her once more. Just then, she’s ready to thank every lucky and unlucky star that’s ever followed her.

Not so lucky.

_BANG!_ goes a knock at the door and in a moment, Cassian has rolled over, kneeling on the bed with a blaster aimed at the door. She had hers in hand a half-second earlier, twisting to see around him, before the intruder finally announced themselves.

“CASSIAN!” the droid yells through the door, “IT IS ME, K2-SO. I TRACKED YOU HERE.” A moment later, K2 overestimates the strength necessary to knock a door instead of knock it _down_ and Jyn finds herself treated to a long, surprised stare from Cassian’s only friend.

“Kay,” Cassian says, exasperation lacing his voice as he lowers his blaster, “how did you find us?”

“I was able to track your location by your comm frequency,” K2 says, eye sockets swiveling from Cassian to Jyn to the rumpled bed back to Cassian. “It was easy once the storm passed.” A pause, and then, “what are _you_ \- ”

“Thanks, Kay,” Jyn interjects, sharing a quick glance with Cassian. “How’d you get back so fast?”

The distraction works as K2 practically glows with irritation. “Jenkins insisted we come back for you instead of following protocol. I thought there was a seventy-two point six chance you would not approve but I will now update my estimates.”

_Raise them,_ Jyn thinks before Cassian swung out of bed to pull on his pants. She follows suit as K2’s eye sockets continued to swivel between the two of them. Further questions were mitigated by Cassian’s quick orders regarding Jenkin’s extraction. Escaping the planet using the same shuttle as before would be difficult. The Imperials would be on the lookout for it, and they’d have to be ready to jump to hyperspace the second they hit atmo. They might already have been spotted on re-entry, and Jyn points out they might need to steal a new ship.

“There is only an eight point three percent chance you will need to steal a ship, Jyn Erso,” K2 says and she grins. 

“Good odds then,” she says, and Cassian looks at her, but it’s not the look she was expecting. It’s the one that says _good soldier_ , that says _welcome home_ , that says _safe harbor at last_. Home at last.

For now, there was work to do.

+

_1 night ago_

“Jyn!” Cassian calls out, a few steps ahead of her, and the word sends a shiver through her that has nothing to do with the storm, “I see something up ahead!”

Squinting through the falling snow, Jyn peers in the direction he had pointed. Her feet were freezing and her fists were bleeding into her gloves from the fight below. They’d escaped, barely, but with minimal gear and mostly just their lives. She’d take anything at this point.

“I can’t see what it is!” she answers and then, a few steps closer, relief floods her whole body as the picture came into view.

A hunting cabin.

In a moment, she caught up to Cassian, and together, they force the door open.

(Safe harbor, at last.)

_Finis_

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [ladytharen](http://ladytharen.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr if you want to say hi.


End file.
